Twenty Dollars Clause
While the amount mentioned in the amendment ($20) has not been indexed or adjusted for inflation, Congress has never extended federal diversity jurisdiction to amounts that small, and the amendment is one of the few portions of the Bill of Rights never to have been incorporated by the Supreme Court of the United States. Under the current Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (28 U.S.C. ยง1332), the amount in dispute in diversity cases must exceed $75,000 USD in order for the case to be heard in federal court.
Read more about this topic: Seventh Amendment To The United States Constitution
Famous quotes containing the words twenty, dollars and/or clause:
“There are twenty ways of going to a point, and one is the shortest; but set out at once on one. A man who has that presence of mind which can bring to him on the instant all he knows, is worth for action a dozen men who know as much, but can only bring it to light slowly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Let those talk of poverty and hard times who will in the towns and cities; cannot the emigrant who can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dollars more to get here ... and be as rich as he pleases, where land virtually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of building, and he may begin life as Adam did? If he will still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Long ago I added to the true old adage of “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” another clause which, I think, more than any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody’s business is my business.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)